


Insomnia

by Ramasi



Category: Death Note
Genre: M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 19:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramasi/pseuds/Ramasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In-between racing for being the one to catch Kira, Near and Mello have friendly late-night conversations and are in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insomnia

This is what sleep has been, for as long as he can remember.

After all this time, it still catches him unaware, this uncontrollable fluctuation in his body's and, which is even more disconcerting, his mind's reactions. There'd been an official curfew at Wammy's, but except for the youngest children, no-one checked if it was respected. He has very ancient memories of waking up among his toys, blinking around confusedly: he's had so many dreams about his castle rising higher and higher around him, and when he's awake, and fully alert within instants, he can't quite figure out how these images are less real than what he sees around him now that he's awake. He has very ancient memories of forgetting to sleep, of letting himself drift away whenever he can't keep up, of all the days spent in a strange half-state between being asleep and being awake, no longer switching clothes for night and day, because these have lost meaning, and he dislikes being subordinated to fickle sunlight anyway. He remembers, clearly, Mello's fury when he found out that his better score was due to Near falling quietly asleep half-way through the examination.

Mello has never been like that. It's not that he went to bed by the prescribed hour, no: he spent many nights strolling through the orphanages' grounds like a caged predator, playing video games with Matt, and, more often than anything else, studying, keeping himself awake with black coffee and chocolate and angry determination. But when he did, it was always a transgression: it was always staying up late. He remembers, very clearly, that Mello was different on late evenings or early mornings, softer and more direct, and that he liked it. Lowered inhibition, like from alcohol, which was odd to discover in Mello who seemed so free of inhibitions in the first place.

He feels that Mello's more honest than him in strange ways, like the lines he crosses matter, while he can't quite see them there in the first place. Mello, with his pseudo-goth-garb, and his insults and sneers, and his crosses that, to him, who's not a Christian, are a secular symbol of death more than anything else, and with his mafia thugs and open murders while he sits there protected by FBI agents and is profiting from Mello's actions. He wishes he could understand why Mello does this, there's no logic behind it and no moral to it either, but if he could encompass his actions in explanations and patterns, then he wouldn't love him as he does, and then what?

The phone call wakes him from sleep or deep meditation, he can't tell: he's been thinking and dreaming of the case, and even Mello's voice by his ear is no longer a clear indication of which one it is. He checks a watch (there are no windows, the electric light is always the same, like on rainy autumn days spent in quiet non-aggression): it's past midnight, and that makes him smile, because there's like a charm to this hour, after which Mello opens up 'til the morning.

"Mello," he murmurs, into the cell phone. His voice is calm.

The first time, the first times – and maybe the next one too – they've pretended that it's to exchange information (along with menaces and insults), small, coded bits, _no guaranty you'll be repaid, no guaranty it's true_ , except that it always is.

"You alone?" Mello asks, routinely; Near can hear him chew chocolate on the other end of the line, and can almost feel the taste on his tongue.

"Yeah," he says, switching off all devices that follow or record their conversation just as routinely, then rolling onto his back and picking up a toy, switching it around with one hand with some difficulty.

"What are you doing?"

"Rubik's Cube." He can hear Mello snort into the phone. "You?"

"Nothing." Near pauses in his motion, because there's something guarded in Mello's tone: not the hateful daylight suspicion; something different.

"Work...?" he guesses.

There's a silence, then a sound he guesses to be a chocolate bar being ripped open. He sits up and begins working at his cube again, absently.

"Mm," Mello's voice finally comes again. "I – fuck." Another pause. Post-midnight tone, soft and raw. It's probably a silly notion, but this is how what imagines sex to be like. "I shouldn't have called now."

Near grips the phone tighter. Kira might have united them – L is what keeps them apart, and for this, he'll be the one to catch his murderer, so he'll be defeated for him and Mello, _not_ L, and after they can bury the name.

"Not like you have to tell me."

Another snort. Another silence.

"Near?"

"What?"

"... nothing." A sigh on the other side. "I don't actually hate you."

Near smiles a little, and switches the phone to the other ear.

"I know."

"You're such a self-important git," Mello says.

"I love you," Near says; he lays the cube down and starts playing with his hair instead, while staring up at the unchanging ceiling above him. He'll have a craving for chocolate, after.

He blinks, and then sits up when there's no answer. Mello's still here, he can hear him chew and breathe on the other end of the line, but – "Mello?"

"... yeah, I'm still here. You're really strange, you know that?" Near isn't sure what to say to that. "You got the box I sent you?"

"No. The team took it apart to check for a bomb." This is familiar territory again; he lies back down. "What was it?"

"Nothing important, just a game I thought you'd like." There's a silence, interrupted only by the sound of tapping, Mello's nails against the phone, he guesses, and waits. Quietly, seriously: "I'll still win this time."

It sounds like a final sentence. Near doesn't answer.


End file.
